beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth reading list

Network

hi! I am duplicating my sign-up here, with just some more general comments added.

All these requests are, I realize now, essentially for some kind of woman-centric alternative to canons' dude-heavy structures and stories. All these characters are witches in some way, either explicitly (Calliope) or potentially, and I'd love to know more about that somehow, should that inspire you.

If it doesn't, no worries. I want to read the story you want to tell about whichever character we matched on.

Another week, another new track from Modest Mouse! If they keep up releasing at this rate, we’ll have an entire anthology of new material at our disposal before we ever get our hands on a physical album. In today’s Music Dispatch, we have their latest, as well as the latest from My Morning Jacket, an anime-inspired music video for R&B’s Kelela, and exceedingly jarring new art for Björk’s recently leaked album, Vulnicura.

“Of Course We Know” is the brooding fifth single to come from Modest Mouse’s forthcoming Strangers to Ourselves album, slated to drop on March 17. The band has also announced a world tour, starting this Saturday in Florida, hitting a number of major festivals around the globe, and finally concluding in Canada this July.

My Morning Jacket will be releasing their seventh studio album, The Waterfall, May 4, and will be following it up with an eighth album, already in the works, sometime in the following year. The first single from The Waterfall is the accompanying track, “Big Decisions”. My Morning Jacket worked with veteran producer Tucker Martine, who also assembled their 2011 album, Circuital, and were inspired to use echo vintage rock and pop sounds throughout the project. [Consequence of Sound]

Paddle8 is currently auctioning off the elaborate, one-of-a-kind copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s “secret” album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. The nine-member rap collective worked on the pet project for six years, creating 31 tracks, and agreeing to never release the finished project commercially or digitally. Producer Cilvaringz explains on the auction site, “We felt that retail commercialization and mass replication would dilute the status of the album as a one-off work of art and compromise the integrity of our statement.” However, whoever ultimately wins the album at auction will own the rites to release it… eventually. They just have to wait 88 years. Offers as high as $5 million have reportedly already been placed. [Forbes]

Björk is not a real human. She is a philosophical persuasion, a nebulous arrangement of ideas, a super talented weirdo, and we love everything about her. Check out her otherworldly, suggestive new artwork for the upcoming physical releases of her new album Vulnicura, which she released shortly after it leaked at the top of the year. You will be able to pick the album in stores (if you still do that–we do!) in the middle of the month. And if you are lucky enough to live in New York, you can check out her exhibit at MoMA. [

Metallica are getting into the spirit of April 18th’s Record Store Day, announcing the release of a kitschy cassette of an early demo, “No Life ‘Til Leather”. The track dates back to 1982, a year before their debut, Kill ‘Em All. Drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone that record will also be re-released on vinyl and will kick off a series of remastered albums. About the early demo, he joked that it embodies “the same innocence and, I guess, borderline ignorance, of four kids barely out of puberty.” And if you’re curious if there is also a Cassette Store Day, there is.

Vulture convinced Susanna Hoffs of/from the Bangles to perform her 1988 track, “Eternal Flame”, at a karaoke bar in downtown Los Angeles, for their new “Get A Room” series. Yes, more of this, please.

Led Zeppelin have been deep within a massive remastering and reissuing project of their own, just last month celebrating the 40th anniversary of Physical Graffiti. The band will also be celebrated in a career-spanning concert film, titled Led Zeppelin, that will play in theaters on March 30. This concert film follows their 2007 reunion tour film, Celebration Day, with both being produced and distributed by Fathom Events. You can purchase tickets HERE. [Consequence of Sound]

Kelela‘s new music video, for “A Message”, the first single off her just-announced Hallucinogen EP, finds the sultry singer cutting her hair and morphing into an Akira-like animated character. The hypnotizing visuals match the snaking groove of the track. The song, produced by Arca, is one of six on the EP, which will follow a deluxe version of her Cut 4 Me mixtape, and precede her debut studio album. [Pigeons and Planes]

On John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, he discussed about infrastructure in the United States and its lack of funding and attention. Infrastructure is a big deal – bridges and dams are falling apart. We need to government and the American public to agree on this and do something about it.

To further promote the importance of infrastructure to the audience, Oliver suggested we make a Michael Bay-esque movie. He put together a blockbuster trailer called Infrastructure, starring Edward Norton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Hope Davis, Steve Buscemi, Josh Lucas, and others. If only.

i was in the chemist looking for riboflavin (which i now know is B2). pharmacy assistant helped me. my vast array of allergies and intolerances came up in the conversation and she mentioned the various powdered nutritional supplements available. i said, one they taste awful, and two they contain things i can't digest. she mentioned a new brand they were going to be stocking that was not milk-based that another customer had requested. i said it probably still tasted awful. she said he hadn't had any complaints. she went on to say that she supposed people who couldn't have a lot of foods probably couldn't complain about what they could get. because, i mean, people with specific dietary requirements don't deserve things that taste nice! we should just eat stuff we don't like and be grateful!

funny how this opinion is only held by people who have never had to read the ingredients label on every food item they consider buying to determine whether or not it's going to make them ill. and by funny i mean i want to punch them in the face. i won't, of course, because that would be wrong. but the urge is certainly present.

In the last episode of “Jamie’s Racing Spiders” on Tested.com — yes it’s exactly what it sounds like — we get to see the fruits of Jamie Hyneman’s engineering labor. After dozens of hours of crafting and with two completed mecha-spiders in hand, the final test was to see if the creatures could get about on rough terrain. And of course, Adam Savage challenges Jamie to a race. It doesn’t go exactly as planned:

Though the racing spiders were more like masses of wriggling rigging than a Wild Wild West abomination, it was still satisfying to see Jamie’s bizarre plan come together. And if at first you don’t succeed, use some Hollywood camera tricks to make it look like you did:

Check out the fascinating previous videos too, where Jamie goes through the specs of building spider robots, with episode one, two, and three.

And now caught up on books that had come in before this week! (One of the books here is pixelated out because it was featured before.) See something that speaks to you? Tell us about it in the comments.

Spoiler warning: If you have not seen the Season 1 finale of Star Wars Rebels, turn back now because I’m about to spoil the biggest reveal. Stop reading. For real.

—

The Season 1 finale of Star Wars Rebels, “Fire Across the Galaxy,” was an emotional roller coaster. It’s a cliche thing to say, but I laughed, I gasped, and I cried. Mostly in that order. What caused me to weep? Not a death or any kind of tragic event but the return of Ahsoka Tano. We last saw her in the Season 5 finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She’s the true identity of Fulcrum and she revealed her identity because it’s time to start bringing the rebels together. Yes, Ahsoka Tano is at the forefront of building the Rebel Alliance. Little Snips is all grown up, and Ashley Eckstein reprised her role as the Togrutan.

Ahsoka is my favorite character in all of Star Wars (well, her and Han Solo) so you can imagine my emotional reaction when I heard her voice. Many people were similarly affected because look:

Eckstein has had to keep the secret for a while, and she posted on social media last night as soon as the episode aired on the West coast. She shared an image of her wearing a shiny new t-shirt designed by Dave Filoni that meshes together Ahsoka and Darth Vader, and the t-shirt is now available from Her Universe:

Ahsoka lives.

The design of the t-shirt is an emotional one. Anakin Skywalker was Ahsoka’s Master while she was part of the Jedi Order. Vader was brought back into Star Wars Rebels in the season finale too, and I strongly feel that we’ll see what will surely be a painful confrontation between them in the future. They’re not joining the cast as series regulars though. According to an interview with Filoni on USA Today, Vader and Ahsoka will be around but used sparingly in Season 2.

While we’re celebrating the return of Ahsoka, look at this art from Lucasfilm:

In the latest episode of Rebels Recon–a show produced by Lucasfilm that takes an in-depth look at each episode of Rebels–Filoni explained Ahsoka’s lightsaber blades are now white since she’s not a Jedi and she’s not evil. The color reflects her lack of affiliation.

And one more thing: Hasbro is releasing an Ahsoka Tano and Darth Vader toy pack this fall. I am so pre-ordering it.

Are you excited to learn that Ahsoka lives? Let me know in the comments or come talk to me on Twitter.

- recent readingSonya Taaffe (sovay). The Dybbuk in Love. I'll be brief, since this tale is itself brief (a chapbook? I am not sure of its length in words). It's a love/ghost story of a dybbuk who has fallen in love with an elementary school teacher, bittersweet and subtle. The language is beautiful; I savored it page by page. Passages like this:

Among the cracked and moss-freckled headstones, he stood quietly and waited for her; he did not look like a dead man, cloudy with light slipping around the edges of whatever otherworld had torn open to let him through, like a shroud-tangled Totentanz refugee with black holes for eyes and his heart gone to dust decades ago, and she wondered what she was seeing. Memories patched like old cloth, maybe, self sewed back together with fear and stubbornness and the blind, grappling desire for life. She did not think he was as truthful as a phonograph recording, a daguerrotype in sepia and silver, more like a poem or a painting; slantwise. He might have been thinking the same, for all the care his eyes took over her--puzzling out her accuracy, her details and her blind spots, the flawed mirrors of her eyes from the inside. What did the dreams of the living look like, from the vantage point of the dead?

Park the House jokes at the door, people, because today it actually is all about lupus. More specifically, Geek & Sundry is launching their Twitch channel with a 48-hour charity livestream in order to raise money and awareness for the Lupus Foundation of America. The event kicks off today, March 3, at 5PM PT and will last until 5PM on Thursday, March 5. Considering that awesome celebrity guests like Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton, Alan Tudyk, the cast of The Guild, and many more will be in the house, you can be damn sure that it’s going to be the single best charity livestream you watch this week. If it isn’t, I’ll eat Pharrell’s hat. Yes, the entire thing. No, I won’t livestream it. I don’t like people watching me when I eat.

On a more serious note, Geek & Sundry chose to raise money for the Lupus Foundation of America in honor of Felicia Day’s friend Maurissa Tancharoen, who you know better as one of the showrunners behind Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Lupus is a mysterious autoimmune disease that attacks the body’s immune system and affects more than 1.5 million people in America alone. The Lupus Foundation of America is crucial in the ongoing quest to figure out a way to stop this disease in its tracks, thanks in large part to the funding it provides to lupus researchers, and the awareness and funds it raises to support the millions of people who are affected by this disease.

So, go ahead and click through to Geek & Sundry’s Twitch channel where they’ll be playing games, hosting live performances, giving away awesome stuff, and much more for 48 hours straight. Or you can just refresh this post come 5PM PT and watch right here — either way, you win, and hopefully lupus will lose.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s directing team Joe and Anthony Russo, aka The Russo Brothers, have just signed a three-year, first-look deal with Sony Pictures. The deal begins next month.

The production co-presidents Michael De Luca and Hannah Minghella released a statement, “Joe and Anthony Russo have demonstrated their ability to bring excitement, audacity and phenomenal commercial success to a variety of genres and endeavors, and we are proud to add them to the family. Their original voices and fearless execution are a tremendous addition to our studio.”

No projects have been announced, but with the success of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the anticipation of their next film, Captain America: Civil War, we should expect more from the brothers.

Now that Spider-Man is back at Marvel. Could this mean we will be seeing Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War? Could the Russo Brothers be directing the next Spider-Man film?

We all have gone through Nerd Rage when it comes to arguments in our fandoms. Why not settle the matter in court? The YouTube web channel Skybound is going to provide that for you with their new web series, Nerd Court. It will be presided over by ‘Judge’ Malcom Barrett and have all your favorite YouTube personalities. There will be a case, each side presents their arguments, and then the judge decides who will win. Basically, a geeky play on The People’s Court and Judge Judy.

This week’s episode ‘The Trial of William T Riker’ will feature Jonathan Frakes, who famously played that character on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Skybound is the home of Robert Kirkman’s creator-owned work including his Eisner Award-winning comic book series, The Walking Dead, long-running Invincible, all-ages Super Dinosaur, Thief of Thieves and Clone as well as Witch Doctor, Guarding the Globe and The Astounding Wolf-Man. Since its inception, Skybound has created television shows, merchandise and a wide spectrum of platforms, games and entertainment events (The Walking Dead Escape). Skybound’s successes include the comic behind the hit Emmy-winning television show, AMC’s The Walking Dead.